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Tuesday, 18 March 2008

Hurray for the Rayburn!!!

Very cold here, so turned the Rayburn up for two reasons - keeping w arm and cooking things to use up the egg mountain! Have ended up with two quiches and 5 jars of lemon curd - I had a load of lemons needing used as well. Started off some grape juice/gooseberry and mint wine (gooseberry and mint cordial needed using up too), and some chilli wine - I'd got some greatly reduced chillies on Friday, so got them used up; pan of eggs boiling on the stove now, and potatoes going in to bake to use the oven up. Just need to clear up now..............

I'll post up the recipe tomorrow, pixiedust - I've used it for years now, and it's completely reliable and easy, but not "cheap" in actual money terms, but that is more than compensated for in terms of taste! GTM - yes - that's the latest batch of chilli wine started - will be ready for a nice winter warmer at Christmas.....if you dare!!

Welcome to my blog

Open on my lap

This is an uncopyrighted blog!

I'm happy to share freely whatever is posted up here on Unbought Delicacies - feel free to copy and share recipes, patterns, my pictures, tips, etc - I really don't mind, and like to think that my advice and experiences learned over the years is being shared with a wider audience. If there's anything I don't want copied or shared, it won't appear here.

This is me............

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,The shelter of a roof above my head,And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.I have found such joy in things that fillMy quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,A potted plant upon my window sill,A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,And books I long have loved beside me there.Oh, I have found such joys I wish I mightTell every woman who goes seeking farFor some elusive, feverish delight,That very close to home the great joys are:The elemental things- old as the race,Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Currently on the needles

Autumn leaves scarf

Crochet blanket/s

Shetland Fairisle kits

Dishcloths

Wartime Farm Fairisle top

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.